Unaffected MK2
by RoboMonkey2012
Summary: Misty leaves her home planet as a stowaway on a small cargo ship, but little does she realize what, exactly, the ship carries and who the crew is. Before she knows it, Misty's a part of a rebel force of six or so very different people on a mission to find out the truth of their small, insignificant star system and what it really means to be alive in the thirty-first century.
1. Chapter 1

Unaffected MK.2

By RoboMonkey2012

Chapter 1: Krokaron

There was a rumbling on the horizon.

The abandoned skyscraper vibrated with the resonating sound waves. It traveled up the metal scaffolding and reverberated underneath Misty's hands, as though the planet of Krokaron had a heartbeat of its own.

Misty's pale, slender fingers curled around the metal edging on the skyscraper absently as Misty stared out at the horizon and the slowly-setting violet star of YVVG Beta-14. The gentle arc of the supergiant steadily lowered below the threshold of the tall, dark buildings. Lights flickered off, and the thrum of active lives in the massive planet-wide city began to fade.

This was when Misty stood up, her arms outstretched and bare feet perpendicular to one another. She flexed her wrists inward, revealing flesh-colored, webbed fins beginning at her middle finger and gently running outward to halfway down her forearm. When she flexed, the fins stood erect. The same effect happened to her calves, save for the fins beginning behind her knees and tracing her muscular calves, ending at her outside ankles.

She took a breath in through her nostrils, the gills at her neck flaring. The fin at her back stood erect.

Green-blue eyes closed as she inhaled, then exhaled.

And with the grace associated with cats, back arched in a perfect swan dive, Misty jumped headfirst off the building, the air streaking past her aerodynamic body and caressing her face as her loose red hair stuck straight back.

Without so much as a splash, Misty's body cut through the surface of the water. Bubbles enveloped her and tickled her cheek before being sucked in through the gills on her neck.

Misty opened her green eyes as she hung suspended under the canals of the city. Light from the street-lamps illuminated the canals, but not all the way to the bottom. No one knew how deep the canals went.

Whipping her whipcord-tough body around in a circle, Misty swam upward and burst from the surface of the water like a dolphin, water droplets cascading in a spray onto the concrete walkway.

"She's done it! Ladies and gentlemen, Misty Eliza Williams completed the Super-Ultra-Mega-Infinity-Awesome-High-Dive! It's a perfect ten! The crowd goes wild! _Aaah! Aaah!_"

Misty grinned at her friend. "It wasn't that impressive," she said dismissively, blushing from the praise. Though secretly, she really enjoyed when people showered her with compliments.

Talia Waterborne kicked her foot in the water and sprayed Misty. "Not that impressive, my dorsal fin. You need to be less modest!"

"Less modest, right," said Misty, nodding. "Ahem. 'Oh my Arceus, Tallie, did you see that awesome dive? It was almost as awesome as everything else I do!' How's that?"

"Without the sarcasm, smarty-pants," Talia snarks.

"Oh shut up," Misty snarks right back, splashing Talia's shins.

Talia vaulted over the smooth metal railing separating the walkway from the canal and cannonballed into the water, soaking Misty even further.

"Seriously, Mist," she said. "You don't give yourself enough credit."

"So you're saying I should get a huge head or something?" Misty asked jokingly.

"I'm _saying_ you should be proud of your accomplishments... or something," said Talia. "Some junk like that."

"Good to know," said Misty, sitting on the edge of the walkway and dangling her feet in the water, curling her finned wrist around one of the support poles.

Talia floated on her back with her hands folded behind her head like she was relaxing on a sofa and blew a stream of water out of her mouth straight into the air like a fountain. A calm, comfortable silence settled over the sleeping city and the two teenagers like a blanket.

"I've been thinking of leaving Krokaron," Misty said bemusedly, breaking both the silence and Talia's concentration. She sat straight up so fast she whacked her head on the railing and nearly choked on the stream of water.

"What?" she sputtered, wiping her eyes free of canal. "What are you talking about?"

"Leaving Krokaron," Misty repeated, leaning back and watching ships streak across the darkening sky. "I just think there's more out there, you know? I'd like to visit other planets, maybe meet new people. I can't stay here forever."

Talia gave Misty a serious look and sat on the walkway on the opposite side. "But they'd never let you," she said. "It's sheer luck we're both not in jail for breaking curfew, but stowing away on a ship'd get you killed for sure! I know you're less Affected than me, but this is just crazy!"

"You know what's crazy?" Misty asked. "This whole system is crazy. I can't just stay in this one city my whole life, I'll go insane and kill myself or something! I need a change of scenery, Talia, and I don't understand how everyone else can stand it."

Talia looked at Misty like she was crazy. "So you _want_ to get yourself killed? You were in class too, Mist, you know how dangerous it is on other planets. Like those asteroid showers on Grigdis or-or-or the locals on Evrunt?" Talia was in a tizzy at this point, waving her hands around frantically.

Misty sighed. "Some things are worth the risk. I mean just once, I'd like to go somewhere other than here. I want to see the talking fish in Irphaligy, or the green mountains in Onjore, or the murals in Urrium."

Talia shrugged hopelessly. "It looks like your mind's made up, Mist. But that also means... I have to turn you in..."

Misty's eyes widened and she stood up on the walkway. "You wouldn't. You can't!"

"I have to!" said Talia, standing up on the other one. "You know what the law is, Misty! They'll kill both of us if I don't!"

"Some friend you are," said Misty, her voice smarting with hurt. "You'd get your friend killed to save your own skin."

"You don't understand!" Talia shouted, tears in her eyes. "It's not a conscious decision!"

"Then what is it?" Misty asked challengingly. "Come on, Tallie, if it's the drug then what makes you come out here every night?"

Talia put both hands over her ears as blue tears streamed down her face. "I can't-" she sputtered.

Misty watched with a mixture of horror and fear as Talia crumpled to her knees on the aluminum walkway, her hands still pressed tightly over her ears. Misty could see the iris of her right flickering golden as the drug of gripped her body harder than it had ever had the need to before.

"Go!" Talia finally shouted to Misty, her head snapping upright and her hands shaking violently. "Run! Run and they won't find you!"

"Tallie, no!" she retorted. "I'm not leaving you when you're about to die!"

"I'm saving you," Talia choked out. Tendrils of gold spread across her right eye and slowly snaked their way to her left. Her eyes were full of golden light as her body was consumed with convulsions. With finality, her head hit the walkway, a resounding _THUD_ echoing through the empty, sleeping city as her lifeless body lay limp on the aluminum.

Misty's hands trembled. "T-Tallie," she mumbled, tears in her eyes.

And then she ran.

**So I decided to rewrite the whole story, probably because I've improved a ton. I also had a bunch of new ideas-like the whole gold-eyes thing, and the laws, and the biology of Misty's species, and the names of the planets, as well as a bunch of other stuff-that I wanted to implement into this story to-hopefully-make it better. Reviews are much appreciated, and I hope y'all will enjoy the story! Keep writing!**

**-RoboMonkey2012**


	2. Chapter 2

Unaffected MK.2

By RoboMonkey2012

Chapter 2: Outbound

Krokaron was a spooky place at night, but it was even spookier if your best friend had just died right in front of you.

Shadows of skyscrapers loomed over the canals and walkways. Around the dim streetlights, tiny moths fluttered near the karvex-vapor lightbulbs while the giant moths beat their enormous, papery wings through the night skies. In darker areas, fireflies blinked and flickered into miniature constellations, and in the canals, glowfish illuminated the dark water in all colors of the rainbow. It was amazing to watch the wildlife as the night was in full swing, but Misty didn't take time to admire the colors of the glowfish.

Instead, she sliced through the water at over 50 miles per hour, making the barest waves in her wake and making no sound save for the gentle splashing of the ripples on the surface, sending up delicate tendrils of mist. That was why they called her Misty, you see, instead of something like Sysyphe or Beryl.

It was sheer luck and stealth that got Misty to the Ports without alerting a soul, and she said a quick prayer of thanks to every deity she knew of, and some she didn't, and probably a few that didn't exist when she slipped into the nearest Port unnoticed.

Misty didn't quite know what her plan was for leaving Krokaron, but she didn't think of that as a problem. At that point, she was operating on impulses and adrenaline and three energy pills she'd taken right before leaving the apartment that night. Besides, Misty figured she'd screw up if she allowed herself to think about what she was doing.

So instead she thought of all the sights she'd see once she was out of orbit. Murals, giant fish, land mammals, meteor showers, auroras; the star system was her oyster once she left Krokaron and its stupid drugged citizens behind.

The ship Misty's subconscious had decided to stow away on was a small, private craft painted red and blue with the word _KETCHUM_-no word she knew of-spray-painted across the side. The craft was dented and dinged and the paint job was faded, and one of the wings could use a tune-up, but it was generally the most inconspicuous ship in the Portyard: perfect for Misty to hide in until she... who knows, got to Ghaueth, pretended she was twenty-one, and bought a secondhand Starfighter or something. Best to cross that bridge when she got there.

As Misty was about to sneak into the cargo hold-Dhrelle only knows how-she stopped dead when she heard voices and flattened herself against the far side of the craft.

"...I don't care what that boron Slater told you, we have to get this stuff to Temporal Landing by tomorrow, otherwise we'll both be spacekill!" someone, a female, snarled.

"But my ship can't carry that much-" someone else said, this one a male.

"Suck it up!" the female snarled back. Judging from the soft _whap_ and grunt, she'd punched her companion in the gut.

The male sighed. "Fine, you wanna crash the thing carrying your sorry antennae, that's not my problem. I'm not gonna be the one telling Aloe her ship crashed."

The female faltered. "J-just get it to Temporal Landing by tomorrow," she said. Soft bootsteps on the cement came closer to the craft and Misty's hiding place. Misty sucked in her gut and pretended to be a barnacle as the bootsteps trooped around to the side of the ship, where Misty got her first good look at the female.

Her skin was very tough and tinged with magenta. Two bug-like antennae stuck out of her hairline and her lower incisors protruded from the sides of her mouth like a spider. She couldn't've been more than sixteen or seventeen, though her face was young and girlish. Her eyes were very blue, the same color as the glowfish Misty had kept(illegally) as a pet when she was ten. She wore a jumpsuit with the arms tied around her waist, exposing her bare arms in a black, hooded tank top. The crooked pin on the strap of her shirt read MAY THORNE, and Misty could barely make out something that looked like some variety of thorny plant curling around her ear. Her hands and forearms were wrapped in bandages up to the elbow, making her look like a female boxer before she put on the gloves.

May took a small, glowing stick out of her pocket and pressed it to the C in KETCHUM, making a section of the hull slide open with a few soft creaks and a poof of smoke, which May waved out of her face in annoyance.

"Gotta talk to Aloe about that," she muttered to herself before turning to her companion and calling, "Yo! Asher! We've gotta go!"

"Alright, alright," said the companion, Asher. Asher was around seventeen and exactly Misty's height. Asher's skin was slightly tanned and his hands were calloused, no doubt from wielding the staff strapped to his back. Tattoos were drawn across his face and exposed skin in black ink, most prominently two Z-shaped marks just below his cheeks. A red cap with a short brim was placed backwards on his blue-black hair. He looked somewhat like a biker, with a bulky black jacket and black pants, only his shirt ruined the image. It was bright blue with a large yellow circle like a happy face, only with no face.

Misty held her breath and prayed they wouldn't notice her hanging on to their ship, but she was rapidly losing faith in her stealth skills and her plan.

Asher looked right at Misty, and Misty tried not to hyperventilate.

"Hey May," he said with a nudge to May. "You see someone over there near the water?"

May didn't look, too busy looking at the door's mechanisms. "Ash, it's a city. There are lots of people here."

"No, like right near it," said Asher, stepping close to Misty so all that concealed her was the convex side of the ship. A drop of sweat rolled down Misty's cheek and hit the water below her, banishing all the bacteria within a two-inch radius. "Right on the ship."

"You're being stupid," May scolded. "Prolly too much chocolate."

Asher turned away and Misty let out a silent sigh of relief. "Hey, don't blame me if that stuff is delicious!"

May rolled her eyes. "Just come on. We've got a delivery, remember?"

Asher gave one last look towards Misty and boarded the ship behind May. Misty, ever the ninja, silently ducked into the ship just as the door creaked closed, engulfing her in darkness.


End file.
